- work in progress, please do not quote or disseminate -

Narrating public sector innovation: The construction of actors,

roles and coalitions through stories of organisational renewal.
Mats Fred & Dalia Mukhtar-Landgren (Department of Political science, Lund university)

1. Introduction and aim

Public sector organisations are constantly exposed to ideas and narratives of organisational
transformation, adaptation and reform. On the basis of politically fluctuating demands, austerity
measures, efficiency requirements, or, for that matter, as a response to the pressures of keeping
up with trends and societal developments, stories of organizational change and renewal are
constructed, told, re-told, translated and disseminated. The narratives are constructed within as
well as “outside” the organisations. They may involve private as well as public actors,
international as well as sub-national actors. These narratives hold the power to assemble a great
variety of resources and actors, but also to construct compleatly new actors or actor roles and
align them towards common goals. Taken together, these actors and narratives of organizational
change have been described as part of a “global innovation movement” (Lavén 2008: 12; Jordan,
2016) supported and endorsed by powerful economic actors such as the world bank, the OECD
or the EU. Together they have generated what is now a market of ideas and a myriad of projects,
pilots and activities aiming to test, evaluate and disseminate new organizational and financial
innovations in the public sector (Ek Österberg & Qvist, 2018; Walker et al., 2016; De Viresl 2015;
Sørensen & Torfing, 2017).

There is a growing body of knowledge regarding innovation in the public sector (Osborne 2014;
Torfing 2019; Hjelmar 2021), but the actors driving these processes of change and their
practices tend to be overlooked in this literature (cf. Füg & Ibert 2020, p. 558). Hence, we seek to
take on this somewhat neglected area of research by analyzing how actors involved in processes
of public sector innovation construct and market ideas for organisational change through
narratives about public sector renewal, while at the same time emphasizing how these
narratives construct as well as assemble actors in different forms of coalitions. Inspired by the
interpretative approach to policy analysis (Hajer, 1995; Fischer, 2003) and translation theories
on mediators (Söderholm & Wihlborg, 2013) we view narratives as stories not only allowing
actors to make sense of socially constructed realities, assign them meaning, define problems as
well as mobilize support for specific projects (cf. Palm et al., 2021), but also as performative
utterances and practices contributing to the construction and reconstruction of actors and roles.
As such, the following research questions guide the paper: who are the actors involved in these
processes of change, how do they construct stories about organizational renewal, and which
actors, roles and coalitions are, in turn, constructed through these stories?

1
Our analysis is based on an ethnographic study of the attempts to launch Social Impact Bonds
(SIB) in Swedish local governments. SIB is an organizational and financial innovation first
developed in the UK in the early 2000 but has since then been met with widespread enthusiasm.
There are now more than 150 SIBs in more than 20 different countries (Social Finance, 2021).
The basic idea is that SIB incentivises private investors to invest in innovative policy initiatives
by providing dividends if these outperform conventional interventions (Sinclain et al., 2021).
The SIB idea is based on the evidence movement's belief in policy initiatives with predictable,
measurable and often quantifiable results (or impact). However, in the model is also a prompt to
find new innovative solutions to difficult (or “wicked”) welfare problems, as well as an eagerness
to open the public sector up to private investors and service providers (Eriksson et. al., 2020;
Ek-Österberg and Qvist 2020; Ansell and Torfing 2016).

We believe that the SIB case illustrates the complexity of public sector innovation and
operational developments, but also that it illustrates how new actors and roles today emerge, or
are constructed, in the organization of welfare work. In Sweden, a great number of different
actors have been involved in the attempts to launch SIB and we have followed these actors
through interviews, observations and document studies during the past years. In our analysis
we found three overarching stories in relation to which new roles are constructed and actors
assembled. These are stories that not only work to connect the actors in different coalitions but
also contribute to the creation of completely new actors, roles and alliances.

The paper is organized in the following way, the next section outlines the theoretical approach,
and thereafter the methods and materials comprising the basis of analysis are described. The
analysis is structured in accordance with the three storylines detected in the empirical analysis,
and finally the results are summarized in a concluding section.

2. Theoretical approach - analyzing stories and coalitions

Starting in institutional ethnography we have closely followed a process where a diverse group
of actors have attempted to launch a public sector innovation (SIB), and in this “investigation of
empirical linkages among local settings of everyday life [and] organizations (Smith 1999 in
Devault & McCoy, 2006:15) we found a group of actors that, despite their differences, narrated
their world in a similar fashion. In our ambition to capture both narratives and actors, we have
opted to theorize these processes using Hajer’s theories on stories and discourse coalitions
(1995) together with theories on translation and mediation.

For Hajer a discourse coalition is a group of actors who gather or assemble around a specific
social construction of reality (Hajer 1995, p. 45; Hajer 1995, p. 65). A discourse can in this
context be described as “collection of ideas, concepts and categories through which social and
physical phenomena acquire meaning, and which are produced and reproduced through an
identifiable collection of practitioners” (Hajer 1995: 44). Here, the actors take as a starting
point, and/or reproduce, different "storylines" (Hajer 1995; Fischer & Foster 1993) which
enable them to communicate and act together, even though they sometimes come from
completely different contexts. The stories are often introduced or presented by experts in
different fields of knowledge, and over time a common terminology is established (Hajer 1993)
as well as common resources such as calculation data or models (Füg & Ibert 2020, p. 551).

2
Through these processes, a specific way of understanding a problem is advocated, and a
proposed policy to remedy the problem thereby appears unambiguous and coherent - at the
same time as the complexity and the internal contradictions or paradoxes in the issue at hand
are hidden (Hajer, 1993, p. 47). In our empirical material, for example, we come across stories of
"the passive public sector", the need to "work together to counteract silo mentalities" and the
importance of finding "solutions that actually work". These are local storylines that are
reproduced, adjusted, communicated and shared between different actors, but they are also
storylines linked to broader discourses about evidence, innovation and the perceived role and
function of the public sector.

Stories emerge collectively and are often based on different metaphors, collective memories,
historical analogies and the like (Hajer 1995). The actors are thus active in building the stories
and they choose, adapt and revise them to get a hearing and impact for their perspective. Or as
Hajer puts it:

Actors try to impose their views of reality on others, sometimes through debate and
persuasion, but also through manipulation and the exercise of power (1993, p. 45).

Here it is important to point out that although the concept of “narrative” or stories may sound
like a fluid and contourless structure, it can - if successful - be linked to organizations and actors
in highly concrete manners and manifest in institutions or even organizational practices (Hajer
1993, p. 46). Examples of this have been shown in studies of the “evaluation society” (see
Dahler-Larsen, 2011; Lindgren 2014) or the “audit society” (Power, 1997) where the stories are
not just fleeting anecdotes about how something can be understood or described (as an
increasing use of audits or evaluations), but also affect how organizations are organized and
governed in practice - practical implications of these stories has cunningly been captured in
phrases such as ‘teaching to the test’ or ‘what gets measured gets done’. The stories create
opportunities but can also set limits for what can be done.

Although Hajer (1993:47) argues that storylines have “important organisational potential”, there
is a tendency to reduce the actors involved to mere creators or receivers of stories. Inspired by
the organisational literature, and particularly the literature on translation and mediators (see
Söderholm & Wihlborg, 2013; Latour, 2005), we instead forward the argument that actors and
actor roles are not as given in advance - instead they are developed and constructed through the
stories. As such, actors involved in public sector innovation cannot be reduced to empty vessels
simply conveying stories from one actor to another without being influenced themselves
(Söderholm & Wihlborg, 2013; Latour, 2005). Instead, each actor involved add to the
proliferation of stories and ideas of change as they materialise into concrete forms of practices
(cf. Czarniawska & Joerges, 1996). However, the materialisation of stories is not only expressed
in ideational changes in policy content but also in organisational change, such as the
embodiment of new organisations, new roles for old organisations, or the emergence of new
divisions, subunits, or lines of demarcation (cf. Latour, 1986; Lavén, 2008, p. 32; Czarniawska &
Joerges, 1996). The role of expert, investor, or facilitator is constructed, narrated or told and an
actor may use or link itself (or be linked) to a particular story or story line.

Summing up, actors construct stories that bind them together in coalitions and new contexts. In
these narrative processes they are also themself created and continuously recreated through

3
and within stories and processes of change (cf. Fred & Mukhtar-Landgren, 2019). When a
discourse (about, for example, innovation in the public sector) is formulated, story lines are
produced (for example about how the public sector does not function as it should) in relation to
specific problems (sick leave, homelessness, etc.) using specific words and phrases (impact,
evidence, cilos, etc. ). In the following, we analyze the discourse coalition taking shape through
the efforts to launch SIB in Sweden, this is done by highlighting three storylines, and elevating
the actors, roles and discourse coalitions that are created through and within them.

3. Case and research design - introducing SIB to Swedish local government

Our analysis is based on an ethnographic study of the efforts to launch Social Impact bonds (SIB)
in Swedish local government. The Swedish case is interesting both in its strong tradition of local
self-government, and in the high incidence of innovative schemes in the welfare sector. This can
partly be attributed to the Nordic countries decentralized system of service provision (including
local authority over the major welfare services), but also to the fact that innovation policies are
generally placed high on the agenda of local and regional governments, which is evident not
least in the plethora of funding opportunities (both from the EU and national agencies) available
for different innovation projects (Sjöblom et al 2019, 21).

In a Swedish context, several of the characteristics of SIB, including the introduction of private
or venture capital to local governments, the promotion of evidence-based policy initiatives and
out-come based contracts with external service providers, are rather new phenomena and has in
Sweden as well as internationally been described in terms of public sector innovation (Maduro
et al., 2018; Withfield , 2015). Even if the volume of activities or money invested in SIB’s remains
small compared to money managed by welfare state systems, SIB is “propelled forward by
powerful economic actors” (Chiapello and Knoll, 2020) such as the OECD, the World Economic
Forum and the EU.

In detail, SIB’s represent a financing mechanism aimed to fund preventive interventions relying
on an outcome-based contract between a public organization (in our case a municipality)
investors and a (public or private) service provider (Nicholls and Teasdale 2019; Arena et al.,
2015; Chiapello and Knoll 2020). The municipality specifies the desired social impact goals, the
investor shoulder upfront costs for the service provider to implement the intervention. The SIB
model also includes an intermediary actor mediating between the different actors involved. Once
the intervention is complete the outcomes are assessed and if the project is deemed successful
in relation to the stipulated goals, the municipality pays the investors their principal investment
plus an additional return (based on the monetary gains for the municipality achieved through
the SIB project). If the intervention fails to meet the objectives, the investor loses their
investment and the municipality does not have to pay (they only ‘pay-for-success’).

In Sweden, the phrase social impact bonds was rather quickly translated into social outcome
contracts, “as a local adaptation of the Anglo-Saxon innovation” (Stjärnkvist & Leksell, 2018). In
other words, the Swedish story about SIB is, already at the starting point, a little different from
the Anglo-Saxon one. Where SIBs internationally is associated with bonds (which brings to mind
the financial market and the banking world), in Sweden it is talked about in terms of contracts
(which is more reminiscent of something regulated and perhaps even bureaucratic). A bond is

4
an interest-bearing promissory note that certifies that the holder has lent money to, for example,
a municipality. A contract, on the other hand, is a written agreement between different parties in
which conditions that must be met are specified. It may be a detail, but the two phrases give
slightly different connotations and the translation from bond to contract seems to have been
highly conscious (and driven by a national agency), as a strategy to minimize resistance towards
SIB in the municipalities. It should be noted that several of the SIB trials initiated in Sweden
were made during a time when there was a lively public and political debate about whether or
not financial gains should be allowed in welfare services. As noted by one of the consultants
who’ve worked diligently to introduce SIB in Sweden, the debate has "slowed us down
considerably" (interview, Robin 2018), noting that many municipalities turned their backs when
private capital was mentioned, said the consultant.

The fact that a new model or innovation for organization and financing is introduced by a
number of different actors in the public sector is not a phenomenon secluded to the SIB case
alone. On the contrary, public as well as private and not-for-profit actors commonly launch and
try to attract and include local government organisations in pilots and project activities (cf.
Mukhtar-Landgren 2021; Bailey et al 2019; Ettelt & May 2019). In our case, one of the first
efforts to introduce SIB was a not-for-profit organisation. But initiatives and efforts have also
been made by a research institute and a national employers’ organisation representing and
advocating for local governments (SALAR). In addition, there have been activities initiated by
universities, investors and various kinds of consultants. It has, as such, to a large extent been
actors outside local governments who have pushed the issue of the need of SIB in the
municipalities. Hall (2020) describes this development as an emerging organizational expertise,
which has a growing importance in the emerging market of generic, organizational solutions and
social innovations to the public sector (2020:191). Several of the external SIB players have also
been engaged in knowledge and story production in the form of websites, powerpoints, reports
and debate articles. Many of these stories are based on the SIB efforts in Sweden, but also on
discussions between the actors and on models and ideas from other countries' SIB trials, as well
as, to a certain extent, research endeavours. The actors meet and interact partly through the
practical attempts to implement SIB in the municipalities (via meetings and presentations) but
also at conferences, seminars and in network activities. As the SIB phenomenon is relatively new
in Sweden, the number of actors involved is still reasonably easy to overlook. But the SIB work in
Sweden is clearly not restricted to the Swedish borders or actors - it is also related to
international actors and networks where the SIB market appears to be growing (Social Finance,
2021). Here Swedish actors gain access to stories of previous SIB trials and best practices.

Method and empirical material

To investigate the introduction of SIB to swedish local governments, we have conducted a 4 year
institutional ethnography, a methodological approach described by Smith (1999) as “the
investigation of empirical linkages among local settings of everyday life, organizations, and
translocal processes of administration and governance” (in Devault & McCoy, 2006:15). This
approach has encouraged us to begin with the experiences of individuals, through observations
and interviews, to find and describe social processes that may have generalizing effects (ibid.).
In ethnographic terms, we have followed, or shadowed (Czarniawska, 2007), the introduction of
SIB in Sweden. This has meant that we have not been restricted to organizational boundaries in
our fieldwork or our analysis, Rather, we have followed the actions associated with SIB through

5
a great variety of inter- as well as intra organizational actions. Following and observing actors
can be described on a scale ranging from “participatory” to “observational” (cf. Gustafsson 2016,
49; cf. Fred 2019). Our study has been situated somewhere in the middle of these two: We
attended local as well as national seminars, webinars and conferences on SIB, social innovation,
impact assessment and public sector innovation during the years 2017-2020. Throughout these
events we listened, but we occasionally also asked questions and interacted with SIB-promoters.
However, we were always up-front with us being researchers and our ambition to make sense of
the introduction efforts in Sweden concerning SIB. In addition, we also gathered written
material at these events such as stories of best practices, handbooks on impact assessment, and
evaluation reports. We also conducted semi-structured interviews (cf. Devault and McCoy 2006)
with actors surrounding these events. In total we have interviewed 41 actors: municipal civil
servants and project managers (n=29, from 8 municipalities), state civil servants and project
managers (n=6), consultants and/or private capital investors (n=6). Finally, the analysis also
draws on documents such as policy documents from municipalities and from actors promoting
SIB, evaluations, procurement documents, and various types of reports. Through this material
we have been able to tease out not only the key actors involved in the introduction of SIB but
also how SIB, as well as the involved actors, has been narrated throughout the years.

In order to identify the actors and stories at play in the introduction efforts of SIB, we
approached the field of relevant SIB actors with an abductive logic of inquiry: language,
including specific words or phrases, used by actors were recovered, described, and categorized
and used as heuristics or what Thomas (2012) calls exemplary knowledge - “example(s) viewed
and heard in the context of another’s experience - another’s horizon [...] - but used in the context
of one’s own, where the horizon changes” (2012:578).The process has been an iterative one
where we first had some ideas of what the key stories might be, based on previous studies,
literature review as well as observations at SIB conferences, then testing and refining them
based on our observations, interviews and document analysis (cf. Alvesson & Sköldberg, 2013).
This process continued until three overarching stories emerged: (1) the public sector does not
work; (2) The need to invest in preventive work, and (3) the importance of knowing what works.
These are not stories in a traditional scene with a specific beginning, middle and end or a hero
and villain, but are rather to be understood as recurring and coherent statements from several
different kinds of empirical material.

The literature on the role of narratives in organizational change is broad and is based on
different epistemological perspectives (Brown et al. 2009, p. 324). However, unlike many more
poststructuralist approaches, we follow Hajer’s understanding of discourses as something that
is actively created by actors in order to conceptualize and create meaning, but also in order to
persuade and convince (1995). In our study, we have focused on trying to identify key concepts
and phrases to investigate how these linguistic constructions are created - while also
highlighting how actors navigate, search and negotiate different ways of describing and framing
political problems. Our focus is thus not on deconstructing or criticizing the stories, but on
explaining and analyzing how actors use them for different purposes. At the same time, it is
important to remember that the constructions do not arise out of thin air but have sprung from
historical discourses and knowledge of how previous, similar problems have been treated.

6
4. Three stories of public sector renewal

Below we describe three stories in the Swedish SIB case, gradually introducing the various
actors and roles involved in the work. All actors appear in all stories, but they are introduced
gradually for the sake of clarity. The stories are also not linear and monologue, but rather
fragmented, scattered and with mutual contradictions (cf. Brown 2009, p. 325). The stories
drawn below are thus of a more ideal-typical nature.

Story nr 1 - the public sector isn't working!

The first story is based on what the actors - more or less explicitly - criticize (cf. Hajer 1993, p.
45). In discourses about SIB, both in Sweden and internationally, actors often unite around
stories about the inefficient, sluggish public sector and its bureaucracy. We know that
bureaucracy, in everyday speech as well as in broader innovation discourses, has long been seen
as the opposite of change, inovation and flexibility (Styhre, 2007; du Gay, 2000). Where the
defenders of bureaucracy have seen continuity and predictability as a guarantor of, for example,
rule of law, transparency and clarity, its critics instead see a reluctance to change, sluggishness
and inefficiency (Carlsson et al., 2021). This story has a long tradition in Sweden. Czarniawska
(1985) described, almost 40 years ago, how the public sector, previously seen as the good
provider of social interventions, has more and more came to resemble the "ugly sister" of the
more attractive - ie. efficient and effective - private sector. In many ways, the story of the
dysfunctional public sector (and the more efficient private sector) is central to public sector
innovation discourses. Today, it is prominent among the actors who work with organisational
change in the public sector and it reappears in our empirical material as something the actors
accept or use as a kind of verbal springboard. One example is Nico who has worked with
evaluations and project management in both the municipal and the state sectors. Nico notes
that:

…we have a huge need to innovate the public sector, we must dare to try new
models, therefore we have set aside (SEK) twenty million to test and evaluate.
(interview, Nico, 2018)

This type of actor is increasingly prevalent in contexts where innovation or organisational

change is discussed and practiced (cf. Svensson 2017). It is a type of actor that seamlessly and
rather effortlessly appears to be moving between sectors and he or she produces expertise and
legitimacy by participating in everything from governmental investigations, network
constellations and advisory boards, to municipal pilot studies and more concrete projects. In the
literature we find a similar actor described in terms of a boundary spanner (Safford et al., 2017)
working at and managing the boundary between several organisational actors such as
the university, a local government organisation and a state agency. In some sense, these
actors have a foot “inside” the local government organisation, usually in one of the centrally
located or so called strategic departments, at the same time as they also stand “outside” the
organization looking in. This very metaphor of being "inside" or "outside" the public sector is
highly prevalent and prominent in our material. There is a notion that the position "outside"
gives the actors a perceived non-biased or "neutral look" into the public sector. Through this

7
external gaze they perceive of themselves of seeing, or even reveal, "a system" that does not
work:

[We make efforts to] get away from reactive measures, and when all research shows
the importance and value of preventive social efforts, why don’t we do it then? If we
know we can make a saving, we know we can reduce suffering whether it is failures
in school or whatever it is ... we know it! Then we understand that it is the systems
that prevent us in the public sector! Silo-mentality and short-sightedness ...
(interview, Ellis [our emphasis]).

The actor quoted here, Ellis, is a leading representative from an organization that has worked
several years to introduce SIB in Sweden. Ellis' organization received money to pilot SIB in a
Swedish context. But the efforts made never resulted in any SIB, and here Ellis expresses
frustration over the lack of concrete results but also the lack of understanding from the
municipalities side of the need for change. This frustration leads us to another part of this story -
the one about public actors "not understanding". The metaphor about the public and the private
sectors "speaking different languages" is often used and a recurrent narrative in our empirical
material. The final report from one of the SIB trials clearly describes how “private or idea-driven
financiers use a language foreign to the public actors and vice versa” (ISE, 2018: 65). They
simply do not understand each other. Another example comes from Mika, a person who has
pushed the SIB issue in various ways, first as a university employee and later as a consultant and
hired expert in various networks and steering groups. Mika describes how the other actors live
in their own respective bubbles - and she describes herself as a kind of intermediary between
several spheres, standing outside these bubbles:

the biggest barriers are the language barriers between sectors... when you put a
private actor and a public actor or a municipality and the NGO sector at the same
table, they do not understand each other when they talk, because we live in our silos
... this I see a lot of when I move between them... they live in their little bubbles
(interview, Mika, 2018).

Through conceptual pairs such as inside/outside, public/private and static/dynamic, a story is

created about those who are “inside the system” and are considered to be passive, and those
who are “outside the system” and more active, filled with agency and are passionate about
creating change. Sometimes these images turn into almost a contempt for the public sector:

I have worked in the public sector, I have worked in the non-profit sector, I have
worked in the private sector and what I like about the private sector is that everyone
strives for the same goal. You may have different opinions about what the private
sector does, but it's still cool that you can organize all the people and everyone
knows where the ball is. In the public sector and the non-profit sector, it is often the
case that people have ... or do not even know what the ball is. They do not know if it
is round or not, which half of the field it is on... so there is a lot of politics, back and
forth, about just constantly trying to describe what kind of ball you are working
with. In this [SIB-] case we have been able to just say no! The only thing that matters
here are these young people and that meant that we could resolve a lot of conflicts
(Interview Sasha, 2018).

8
Here, the stories almost take on the character of a monologue that appears to be “anti-dialogical
because they promote imaginary images of the other” (Brown et al. 2009, p. 326). In our
interviews, several actors describe the importance of "explaining" to the public sector that they
need change and renewal. Sasha, who has invested both time and money in the Swedish SIB
trials, states that there are many innovations out there, but there is in essence no demand from
the public sector:

There is an availability of social innovations, obviously, but there does not seem to be
any particularly clear demand. Then maybe our job is not to increase the supply
[side of the market...] but maybe we instead should work to complement this
ecosystem and push on the demand side - and simply try to get the state to buy
innovation! (Interview Sasha, 2018)

Here the municipality is seen as unable to understand why they need renewal and change - a
problem which leads to frustration among the actors "outside" but it also leads to active
attempts to change and persuade the actors "inside". Together, these innovation-promoting
actors also act in different ways to create change. As we shall return to later, there are a plethora
of different ways in which SIBs are "sold" to the municipalities.

In summary, we see how different actors, including NGOs, investors, consultants, researchers
and investigators jointly construct and maintain stories about the inefficient public sector. We
also came across this story from some municipal employees (actors “inside” the organisation).
Together, the actors form a discourse coalition where, despite the differences, they meet in a
common social construction and, based on that, argue and act for the need for renewal/change.
The story of the position "outside" also generates a joint understanding of a group of (diverse!)
actors with a mission and a common agenda - looking at a system that they argue is not
working.

Story nr 2 - To invest in preventive work

The second story is about the importance of preventive social work. Preventive work is in many
ways the core of social work. In a Swedish context, it can be traced back to the early 20th
century and the political pioneers in Alva and Gunnar Myrdahl's thoughts on a prophylactic
social policy based on ‘early initiatives’ (see Morel et al. 2012: 3). In our material, we have been
struck by the fact that the stories about SIB often, and sometimes rather monologically, highlight
preventive work as a completely new idea in social work: something that actors “outside” have
"understood", but which the municipalities in turn "do not understand". At the same time there
is a shift, or a reformulation, from prevention as a pervasive idea, to prevention as a concrete
(economically) measurable strategy.

Preventive work and early intervention have become conceptualized in terms of social
investment in recent years (Nilsson, et al., 2014). In short, social investment is about early
interventions in people's lives to avoid future costs. Such early interventions, the argument goes,
should be viewed as an investment and not a cost (Hamerijck, 2017; Morel et al., 2012 .). It is
thus a story line with a long time horizon, where efforts are made in order to avoid future costs,

9
which also indicates a certain shift towards an economic perspective on social efforts. In the
literature on social investment, this shift has been described, and defended, as a third-way
politics - a compromise and attempt to reconcile right-wing and left-wing politics by
focusing both on social issues and the economical factors of investments at the same
time (Morel et al., 2012). It thus becomes a story that can satisfy widely different wishes and be
used by widely different actors, at the same time as conflicts and internal contradictions can be
hidden (cf. Hajer, 1993, p. 47).

The starting point for the social investment story is that alienation and exclusion of people not
only entails personal suffering, but also a socio-economic loss. Through lectures, books and
conferences, this story spread across Sweden in the 2010s and more than half of all (290)
Swedish municipalities initiated some form of social investment activity, often in the form of
social investment funds (Balkfors et al. , 2020). Interestingly enough, we find that several of the
actors involved in the advocacy for social investment, including consultants, research institutes
and national agencies, are also found in the emerging discourse coalition around SIB (see Fred
2018). The two stories of social investment and SIB are closely related and based on the same
kind of logic. In a book on social investments, written by one of Sweden's most well known social
investment advocates, it is stated under the heading “Reducing exclusion in society - a social
investment with a high return” that:

The increasing exclusion and alienation of people over a number of decades means
that both production values are lost as well as large societal costs for livelihoods,
care and rehabilitation efforts are generated. In a nutshell, each lifelong exclusion
(between 20-65 years) costs SEK 10-15 million (Nilsson, 2012, p. 11).

Central to social investments are thus ideas and models for how an investment is to be
calculated, and how much money a municipality “saves” on introducing early interventions. This
kind of investment thinking also makes new stories about social policy and social problems
possible. New questions arise here, for example - how should municipal economists calculate
the savings that a possible loss of cost may generate? And how do we know if the intervention
actually leads us where we want it to go?

Central to the stories surrounding SIB is also the question; why should investment in social work
be reserved for public funds alone? If we know that an intervention works, and that it leads to a
financial gain, then why can not a private player contribute with that investment? In this part of
the story, an actor, to some extent, a new type of player - the investor - becomes of particular
importance. In the SIB case, the investor is someone (a venture capitalist, fund manager, a bank)
who can invest in various initiatives in order to later be able to receive part of the possible
"profit" that arises as a result of reduced public social costs. Here, the connection to the evidence
movement becomes clear: the investor, of course, wants to make sure that the effort works
before they choose to invest - you only invest in something that you 'know' works in advance.
This, in turn, puts pressure on the ability to measure and predict the outcome of a particular
intervention or solution. So, the investment is dependent on what type of intervention that can
be presented as a possible SIB initiative.

10
This leads us to another group of actors that is important in the stories surrounding SIB: the
actors who have "new ideas" about social problems and who dare to think "outside the box". In
the SIB context, these actors are often referred to as ‘social entrepreneurs’ or actors who work
with ‘social innovations’. These are often actors “outside” the municipality's organization, and
actors working with different types of “solutions” to societal problems, often based on a specific
model or method. As a type of actor these SIB champions are a bit difficult to locate or pin down
to any specific organization. In our case, we find them in several places but with varying motives
for their burning interest in SIB. Nico, who was described above as a kind of boundary spanner
(Safford et al., 2017) working at and managing the boundary between several
organisational actors such as the university, a local government organisation and a state
agency. Nico is a SIB champion as he in several different roles has worked to advocate SIB in
the municipalities - not least because there is a "huge need to innovate", as Nico puts it. The
representative from the voluntary organization above also has a strong trait of SIB Champion in
how he describes his commitment to their target group in relation to SIB. In addition, the
investor can also be regarded as a SIB champion as their commitment in SIB has not only been
that of a passive investor but they have invested both energy, time and money in trying to get a
SIB going. One of the investors we spoke to said that there is a potentially large investment
market here, but it is still quite immature and the large investment companies are "biding their
time" in anticipation of this. Yet in addition to an economic interest, there is also a desire to
"make a difference that is visible and noticeable and is scalable and can lead to lasting and
significant societal change" (interview Sasha, 2018).

A similar story was presented at a seminar with "Scandinavia's main impact investors",
organized by a ‘social innovation meeting place’ at Malmö University. One of the attended
investors, Kim, describes the social innovation champions in their industry. Kim argued that
many who previously worked with more traditional forms of investment in high-tech projects
are now seeking to invest in something more sustainable and long-lasting: "these are people
who have opted out of a more comfortable lifestyle in order to make an impact" (Kim). Here, the
investors want to distance themselves from the traditional story of the calculating and
profit-driven venture capitalist in favor of a more socially responsible investor who even actively
opts out of large profits to contribute to lasting social change.

However, even though the voluntary organization, the municipal strategists and the venture
capitalists can agree on problem formulations, there is of course also a lot that separates them.
As a model, SIB has a special function designed to bridge these differences and create synergies -
the intermediary actor. As we described in the introduction, the logic of the intermediary is to
bridge between different actors and connect the actors owning the problem (the municipalities),
with those willing to pay (the investors) and the service provider. The intermediary weaves the
various actors together into a whole, a package, a common solution. In the stories about SIB, the
intermediary is often seen as a solution to the problem mentioned above about different
language and culture in different sectors. Sasha says:

if I run around like a private-sector muppet and try to sell stuff to the
municipalities… it wouldn't really work, it requires a certain aptitude and so and
like you really need that intermediary function...

11
A similar description is given in a final report from one of the SIB trials. Here, the intermediary is
described as having "an enormously important role to play by acting as a diplomat and translator
to avoid misunderstandings and instead seek a common language for the parties, taking into
account important priorities and principles on both sides" (ISE, 2018: 65ff). In these stories, the
intermediary appears almost as an editor who, based on discursive and cultural differences, edits
together a coherent story with a beginning, middle and end. Sasha explains the outcome of a
successful intermediary process:

It was actually possible to do that! We actually agreed! Here was a billionaire and a
Social Democrat and they agreed on doing this to develop the public sector!
(interview, Sasha, 2018).

In summary, different actors build a kind of common understanding of SIB based on their
different organizational spheres (private, public, financial, voluntary) and the story of SIB
contains several different types of enthusiastic actors, or champions if you like. Where the
voluntary organization is driven by the commitment to its target group, the municipal strategist
is driven by the hope of a more change-prone organization and the investor by a possible profit
and the chance to make an impact and lasting impression on society. Although the motives for
getting involved in SIB differ between different actors, they find and create common stories that
connect them. One such story is the idea that preventive work is an investment, where the
concept of "investment in the future" can in turn be interpreted in several different ways.

Story nr 3 - on the importance of knowing “what works”

This story is about a perceived need for an "impact culture". This term is used by several actors
and is found in various publications about SIB. We understand it as a kind of umbrella concept
that gathers ideas and stories about the need for more focus on effects, or 'impact' in the public
sector, it is about 'social investment', and about knowing ‘what works',' what specific costs for
specific initiatives, but also about what is 'measurable', 'evaluable' or ‘investable'.

Like the previous ones, this story has connections to broader and international stories or
narratives. Perhaps it even can be seen as a concretization of the increased interest in the
“output side” of the social apparatus (Hall, 2012; Hood, 1991). According to this societal
discourse, emphasis is shifting from the input side of policy making to impacts, results and
effects. In a broader perspective this output oriented focus has been understood in relation to
New Public Management reforms, including the increasing use of ex post audits (Jacobsson et al.,
2019; Power, 1997) and evaluations (Dahler-Larsen, 2011), the pressure to document activities
in the public sector (Forssell & Ivarsson- Westerberg, 2014) and the evidence movement’s credo
of "what works", where credible, scientific, evidence should guide the way forward (cf. Boaz et
al., 2019; Mosley et al., 2019).

Through the emphasis on science, the importance of knowledge becomes central in stories about
SIB. This in turn entails that experts or knowledge producers are considered key players in this
particular emerging discourse coalition. Our study shows that knowledge production in this
context is largely supported by consultants but also by universities and “consultant-like
academics” (Hall, 2020: 191) - yet another kind of boundary spanner exceeding the boundaries
of academia and consultancy. In an interview, a researcher who has been prominent in the work

12
with social investments in Swedish municipalities, points out that "we need to strive after
bringing the impact culture, that is so obvious in road safety, into the realm of welfare
investments". The researcher continues:

“-we know that many municipalities implement social investments that do some
good. But since they lack the tools to relate the benefit to the costs, we cannot say
whether the efforts are financially justified” (Dialog, 2019, p.6).

Here, the connection to the “what works” movement is clear, but we also see an argument for the
need for more financial expertise in the municipalities. In some of the Swedish municipalities
this has been heeded and economists and controllers have been hired to calculate and evaluate
various social initiatives - as such, new actor roles have been constructed and motivated from the
outside and with the help of story lines associated with an impact culture.

Regarding scientific expertise, universities around the country also build 'platforms' around
social innovations more comprehensively, but also around outcomes, effects and the search for
solutions "that work" more precisely - something that is, of course, frequently used by SIB
advocates. Through the government funded innovation agency Vinnova a great portion of
networks and projects have been funded and the universities have been very active in this field,
initiating networks, courses, seminars and projects. In these initiatives, knowledge is produced
and disseminated about specific solutions, ‘best practices’, models for measuring results and,
perhaps more importantly for our analysis, a story about the role of academia and science in this
work.

The knowledge and “expertise” generated through these projects is also disseminated in
different ways, and by several different actors. An example is via books and reports, including
publications such as “Everyone talks about it but few does it: a handbook on impact
measurement” or “A method palette for social innovation”, both published by Malmö University.
They contain texts produced by researchers, as well as "social entrepreneurs" and
"intermediaries". So even if the publisher is a university, it is not in its entirety an academic or
scientific production and text. However, it is not only reports and books that are produced and
distributed through these projects and platforms, but the "expert knowledge" is also spread at
conferences, workshops and webinars in different forms. We have, for example, participated as
observers in a number of (physical and digital) events where the same actors often return either
jointly or separately at presentations, panel discussions or seminars. One such example was a
webinar on impact measurement held by the Alliance for Social Innovation and Change (ASIF) at
Malmö University early summer 2020. The webinar was marketed and organized by the
university, but the presentation was held by Mika, a consultant (who also participated in the
handbook for impact measurement above ). The invitation states that:

[we go] through the basics of impact measurement, such as: What is an effect and
what is not an effect? What is the difference between outcome and impact and why
is this important? What should you actually measure and how do you choose
so-called outcome units? (from invitation to webinar on power measurement June 8,
email).

13
Through the consultants close connection to the university the knowledge claims are
strengthened, and so is the consultant's position as an expert, with all that entails in terms of
setting the agenda and credibility. Mika is also a frequently hired consultant by both
municipalities, universities and investors and bridges different contexts and coalitions as an
expert.

Another SIB-promoting actor with strong legitimacy is the Swedish association of local
authorities and regions (SALAR). SALAR is an empolyer’s organisation that represents and
advocates local governments. Noah, a project manager at SALAR, described how they went to
the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Boston to learn how to do “practical
randomized studies. So we also teach ourselves and bring in international expertise and try to
formulate something that works in the concrete practices”. Besides frequent reference to
scientific knowledge and research formulating what works in practice is something that SALAR
has devoted quite a lot of energy to. This has resulted in reports such as “Checklist for Politicians
and Decision Makers” and “Don’t Wait! Guide for investments in early intervention for children
and young people ”. In addition, they have also, together with a consulting firm, developed a
model for outcome tendering where municipalities are asked to procure outcomes instead of
activities. This has been a bit of a "mental adjustment", said the consultant Kim, and continued:
"in normal cases you procure, and then you pay for the service regardless of whether it works or
not", but here they were asked to “pay-for-sucess”.

In addition to these very solid guidelines, methods and models, SALAR also organizes seminars,
conferences and networks to encourage local government actors to engage with social
investments and SIB. They are also frequent visitors at conferences, both nationally and
internationally. In this way, SALAR is a leading voice (locally, nationally and internationally) in
the stories around SIB. A clear example of this is the translation from Social Impact Bonds to
Social Outcome Contracts, which spread quite quickly and now dominates the story of SIB in
Sweden.

In addition to these more formal knowledge producers and distributors - such as universities or
SALAR - we also find other types of knowledge producers. An example is different types of
networks. There is, for instance, a Nordic network for SIB, started by Malmö University, where
representatives from important SIB players in the Nordic countries are represented. Another
example is the Institute for Social Effects, a “knowledge platform” created by a non-for-profit
organisation together with a number of different actors including DLA Piper, Danske Bank,
Leksell Social venture and Norrköping Municipality “in order to promote social innovation and
social investments aimed at children and young people ”(fryshuset.se 2020). A third example is
The Swedish National Advisory Board for Impact Investing (SNABII), in which we find
representatives from several banks, the aforementioned consultant Mika, a not-for-profit
organisation, the swedish innovation agency and, once again, Malmö University. It is obvious
how these different coalitions are connected, which of course also facilitates the creation and
dissemination of common stories and knowledge. But in this coalition there is also another part
of the SIB story, apart from the above-mentioned evidence-based one. This part focuses on new
ways of opening up the public sector for private investors and service providers. A press release
from The Swedish National Advisory Board for Impact Investing states that:

14
 More and more capital will be needed to secure tomorrow's welfare and to solve the
major societal problems at both local and global levels. At the same time, private
savers as well as institutional investors are looking for opportunities to place and
invest their capital with a higher purpose than just financial returns. The market for
so-called impact investments is growing rapidly both in Sweden and in the world
and is estimated to be worth over USD 500 billion globally (Press release on
September 17, 2019).

The focus here is thus on the investment model and on the financial part of SIB. As indicated by
the quote we are talking about a potential market with huge sums of money and investors who
act globally based on a “higher purpose”. But even here, knowledge is required, partly about how
to solve challenges and measure impact but also about the more financial pieces of impact
investments. Here too, the knowledge is often produced in coalitions between several actors,
where, for example, Malmö University has organized a conference where the above actors have
been invited to give presentations to potential investors. The coalitions then seem to be kept
alive through a mutual exchange of services where the consultant later holds a workshop in
which representatives from the university can participate and share their expert knowledge, etc.
The coalition thus functions as a kind of market for the exchange of services, ideas and funding.

5. Concluding discussion

Above, we defined a discourse coalition as a group of actors who gather around a specific social
construction of reality. These constructions are created and reproduced through different
stories, which make it possible for the actors to speak the same language but also to act together
and with a common goal, even though they come from completely different contexts. In the
material, we see the emergence of a common terminology, with concepts and phrases such as
outcome focus and impact culture, what works, investments but also, for public administration,
relatively new actors or roles such as intermediaries, investors and service providers.

Where previous policy research has described how individual actors, such as femocrats
(Eisenstein 1989) or inside activists (Hysing & Olsson 2018), pursue specific issues, our analysis
instead shows how different change-driven actors unite through stories and narratives that
bring about change. The purpose or motive for joining, or contributing to the creation of, a story
can be widely varied - from financial gain to a strong social engagement - but certain statements
and stories unite special actors and enable different forms of practices.

One reflection made in our analysis is that the intended recipients of the SIB ideas and models -
the local governments - often are absent at seminars and conferences or meetings where their
needs or problems have been discussed. When they were present, it was mainly to pose as an
illustration or as the “other” that the innovative actors formulated their self-image against,
whether it be a problem to be solved, or in the self-understanding of innovators as dynamic,
prone to change and knowledgeable. The discourse coalition of SIB is less reminiscent of
traditional work for change in the public sector and more reminiscent of an emergent market
where the “product” SIB (and various additional products: evaluation, impact measurement,
procurement) is developed, adapted and sold by active players to a relatively passive recipient
or customer. Related to this, we also see a growing reliance on a specific expertise, supported by

15
consultants but also by universities - an expertise that is largely about organization,
management and financial techniques (evaluation, impact measurement, networking, financing
and calculation models) rather than about the substance of what must be addressed in the
municipalities - expertise on target groups or treatment methods, for example.

A discourse coalition is also characterized as being a process where actors meet across previous
borders, as in our case from universities, the NGO sector and the banking system. Through our
observations, these coalitions are not entirely without friction, for example there were instances
at webinars when someone from an NGO questions whether it is problematic to equate good
results with what is measurable. But our analysis shows that actors still meet through the
position of being "outside" the public sector. There is a common experience of standing “outside”
and “looking in” on the public sector in some sense, and with the privilege of an outside
perspective, a community and a perceived “neutral gaze” are created. In other words, the
“expert” does not have to be professional in any traditional sense: rather, our analysis shows
how a coalition of actors (outside the municipality's organization) can act on the basis of
discursive expertise and thus create and support stories of what is problematic in public sector,
which actors are needed to address the problem and what type of organization and funding is
best suited to the task.

References
Alvesson, M. & Sköldberg, K. (2013). Reflexive Methodology. New Vistas for Qualitative Research.
Second edition. Sage Publication Ltd: London.
Ansell, C, and J. Torfing. 2016. “Collaboration and design – New tools for public innovation”. In
Public Innovation Through Collaboration and Design, edited by Ansell, C, and J. Torfing.
New York: Routledge https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203795958
Balkfors, Anna, Bokström, Tomas & Salonen, Tapio (2020). Med framtiden för sig: En
ESO-rapport om sociala investeringar. Rapport till Expertgruppen för studier i offentlig
ekonomi 2020:1.
Brown, Andrew. D., Gabriel, Yanis & Gherardi, Silvia (2009). Storytelling and change: An
unfolding story. Organization, 16(3), 323–333.
https://doi.org/10.1177/1350508409102298
Czarniawska, Barbara (1985). The ugly sister: On relationships between the private and the
public sectors in Sweden. Scandinavian Journal of Management Studies, 2(2), 83–103.
https://doi.org/10.1016/0281-7527(85)90001-5
Dahler-Larsen, Peter (2012). The evaluation society. Stanford, CA: Stanford Business Books.
Dialog (2019). Dialog, en tidning från Kommuninvest, (4). kommuninvest.se [Accessed March
2021].
Ek-Österberg, E., and M. Qvist. 2020. “Public Sector Innovation as Governance Reform: A
Comparative Analysis of Competitive and Collaborative Strategies in the Swedish
Transport Sector” Administration and Society 52 (2): 292–318
https://doi.org/10.1177/0095399718789077
Eriksson, E., T. Andersson, T., Hellström, A., Gadolin, C., and Lifvergren, S. 2020. ”Collaborative
Public Management: Coordinated Value Propositions among Public Service Organisations.”

16
 Public Management Review 22 (6): 791–812.
https://doi.org/10.1080/14719037.2019.1604793
Ettelt, Stefanie & Mays, Nicholas (2019). “Policy pilots as public sector projects: Projectification
of policy and research” in: Damian. Hodgson, Mats. Fred, Simon. Bailey. Patrik. Hall (Eds.).
The projectification of the public sector. Abingdon: Routledge.
Fischer, Frank & Forester, John (1993). The argumentative turn in policy analysis and planning:
Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press.
Forssell, Anders. Ivarsson, Westerberg, Anders. 2014. Administrationssamhället. Lund:
Studentlitteratur.
Fred, Mats (2018). Projectification, the Trojan horse of local government. Diss. Lund University,
Dept of political science.
Fryshuset (2020). https://www.fryshuset.se/verksamhet/institutet-for-sociala-effekter/om-ise
Füg, Franz & Ibert, Oliver (2020). Assembling social innovations in emergent professional
communities: The case of learning region policies in Germany. European Planning
Studies, 28(3), 541–562. doi:10.1080/09654313.2019.1639402
Hajer, Maarten (1993). Discourse coalitions and the institutionalization of practice: The case of
acid rain in Britain. I: Frank Fischer & John Forester (Eds.). The argumentative turn in
policy analysis and planning: Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press.
Hajer, Maarten (1995). The politics of environmental discourse: Ecological modernization and the
policy process. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Hall, Patrik (2012). Managementbyråkrati: Organisationspolitisk makt i svensk offentlig
förvaltning. Liber: Malmö.
Hall, Patrik (2020). Mötesplats Sverige: Svensk innovationspolitik under hundra år. Lund:
Studentlitteratur.
Hemerijck, Anton (red.) (2017). The uses of social investment. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Hjelmar, U. 2021. “The institutionalization of public sector innovation.” Public Management
Review 23 (1): 53-69. https://doi.org/10.1080/14719037.2019.1665702
Hood, Christopher (1991). A public management for all seasons? Public Administration, 69(1),
3–19.
ISE (2018). Social impact bond i svensk välfärd. Institutet för sociala effekter. Fryshuset:
Stockholm.
Jacobsson, Bengt. Pierre, Jon. Sundström, Göran. 2019. Granskningssamhället: offentliga
verksamheter under lupp. Lund: Studentlitteratur.
Larner, Wendy & Laurie, Nina (2010). Travelling technocrats, embodied knowledges: Globalising
privatisation in telecoms and water. Geoforum, 41(2), 218–226.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2009.11.005
Lavén, F. 2008. “Organizing Innovation. How policies are translated into practice.” Ph.D diss.,
Gothenburg University.
Lindeberg, Sara (2014). Förord: Sociala investeringar. I: J.A.B. Haglund, J.A.B. Sociala
investeringar. Socialmedicinsk tidskrift, 91(3).
Morel, Nathalie, Palier, Bruno & Palme, Joakim (red.) (2012). Towards a social investment
welfare state? Ideas, policies and challenges. Bristol: Policy Press.
Mosley, Jennifer E., Marwell, P. Nicole & Ybarra, Marci (2019). How the ”What works” movement
is failing human service organizations, and what social work can do to fix it. Human
Service Organizations: Management, Leadership & Governance, 43(4).
https://doi.org/10.1080/23303131.2019.1672598

17
Mukhtar-Landgren, Dalia (2021). Local autonomy in temporary organizations: The case of smart
city pilots. Administration & Society, https://doi.org/10.1177/00953997211009884
Nilsson, Ingvar (2012). Sociala investeringar kring barn och unga. Skandia
Försäkringsaktiebolag.
Nilsson, Ingvar, Wadeskog, Anders, Hök, Lena & Sanadaji, Nima (2014). Utanförskapets pris: En
bok om förebyggande sociala investeringar. Lund: Studentlitteratur.
Osborne, S.P, ed. 2014. Handbook of innovation in public services. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar
Publishing.
Stjärnqvist, Lars & Leksell, Laurent (2017). Sociala utfallskontrakt utvecklar välfärden. Dagens
Samhälle.
Styhre, Alexander (2007). The innovative bureaucracy: Bureaucracy in an age of fluidity.
Routledge Studies in Innovation, Organization and Technology. London: Routledge.
Svensson, Petra (2017). Cross-sector strategists: Dedicated bureaucrats in local government
administration. Avhandling. Göteborg: Göteborgs universitet, Förvaltningshögskolan.
Söderholm, Kerstin & Wihlborg, Elin (2013). Mediators in action: Organizing sociotechnical
system change technology in society. Technology in Society, 35(4), 267–275.
doi:10.1016/j. techsoc.2013.09.004
Thomas, G., 2010. Doing case study: abduction not induction, phronesis not theory. Qualitative
Inquiry, 16 (7), 575–582. doi:10.1177/1077800410372601
Torfing, J. 2019. “Collaborative innovation in the public sector: the argument” Public
Management Review, 21 (1): 1-11. DOI: 10.1080/14719037.2018.1430248
Vinnova (2020). https://www.vinnova.se/p/social-impact-innovation-support/

18